Culture Building Part 5 - Creating the Movement

It is said that leaders get the culture they ‘behave’, but cultures are rarely changed by a single person or event. Important though Queen Victoria’s example was, Victorian culture developed as it did not because of this alone, but because of other powerful forces at work not least of which the influence on society of a more evangelical brand of Christianity.

Creating the movement that is required to change a culture requires several steps.

Step one – Invest in your coaching capacity

Coaching is not new but the way it is used in organisations is evolving. Increasingly, organisations aspire to have a culture in which managers and others are able to have live, in the moment, collaborative conversations as a means of solving problems and driving performance.

High-performing teams are consultative and collaborative … people feel valued when they are consulted and feel that their contribution is important … and high-performing organisations not only say they regard their people as their most important and most valuable resource as many organisations do, they invest in the skills that are required to access those resources.

Coaches are able to tap into the knowledge and experience people have, and the understanding they have of what is happening and what can be achieved; resources that can either remain dormant or be mined for the benefit of the individual and the organisation.

Invest in your coaching capacity. Build your team. Train them, but do not just train them. Support them to develop their skills through coaching-the-coach initiatives and lead them … they are an influential force in the culture change journey.

Step two – Talk to your people

When we describe the culture we want for our organisation, we emphasise the importance of dialogue … so talk to your people … talk to all of them.

Discuss work with your colleagues in an open and collaborative spirit, with a view to tapping into the personal resources they have … their knowledge of how things work when they do work, their experiences and their understanding of what is happening and what is possible … resources that would otherwise remain dormant. 

We want to feel like a team. We want to feel like a community and that we are all in it together. The culture is us and how we are with each other and so it is our discussions and conversations that drive the culture. Do we need consultants to run focus groups to engage with our people about culture? Do we need software to conduct a culture climate survey?

People are resourceful, so talk to them … talk to all of them.

Step three – Ask the Miracle Question

Define what culture you want by asking the Miracle Question.

“Suppose a miracle occurs tonight while you are sleeping. When you wake in the morning, all of the problems with your culture as it is today, will be gone. You won’t realise the miracle has occurred immediately of course, probably not until you arrive at work, but what would be the first clue do you think that a miracle has happened? And then what? What would be different? What would you see? What would be happening?”

Ask everyone and record what they say. Create a Culture Statement using the words that your people have used so they can see that they have contributed.

Share the Culture Statement … it is an expression of the experience your team aspires to have at work.

Step four – Breathe life into your green shoots

Find your green shoots of renewal, the examples of the culture you want already existing, however small, however fleeting.

“When or where are these things that you describe even a little bit present already?” 

 Explore what it is that enables them to exist.

“What’s going on here that allows this to exist, when it does? What are the conditions that have allowed this to take root?”

 Work out what is needed for them to exist and thrive elsewhere.

“What do we have to do to extend this beyond where it currently is?”

Step five – Live the culture you want

You do not get the culture you want by living a different culture. Relationships matter and conversations matter. It is our relationships, our discussions and our conversations that drive the culture and so we, the leaders and the change agents, have to be the change we want to see.

The culture is us and how we are with each other.

We have to live the culture we say we want.

Michael Emery, CMIOSH

Michael Emery is owner and director of Securus Health & Safety Limited, a Lancashire-based consultancy. He has managed health and safety for several leading organisations, household names at home and abroad, and he has been freelance since 2009. As a qualified Executive Coach accredited with the Academy of Executive Coaching in London, Michael has been helping organisations large and small develop their coaching capacity for several years. What these organisations appreciate, is that the way people communicate with each other determines, to a large degree, the kind of culture the organisation has, and engaging positively and collaboratively as coaches do, is important in shaping the kind of culture they aspire to have.